The circle (Death Spiral) of Life

Being born and raised by traditional Indian parents, there was always and still is an emphasis to excel and succeed in life. But excelling and succeeding were upon looked through a filtered lens.

During school days it always meant better grades than your fellow classmates. Even if the grades were good (Getting an A is good but an A with 99 is better than 95 on 100), you had to be ranked among the top in your classroom. To be considered successful post middle school, you had to choose the science and math stream.

In high school it was all about the competitive exams one writes to get into colleges. Which college one got into was determined by how he or she scored in a national exam. Similar to the SAT’s or the LSATs in the US, India has a wide variety of national tests that pits you against every other student interested in a similar career. You had to get into the top 10 colleges in the country or the state, else you would be denying your parents their bragging rights. How selfish of you!

Towards the end of College it was about which company gave you the offer. What was the joining base salary/package being offered and where did you stand with respect to all the other classmates who graduated with you.

If you did not want to work and wanted to study further and get an advanced degree like a Masters or an MBA (Really? May be it is because he could not secure a job), then it was again about which college, what were the packages offered to students graduating.

All of the above markers, indicators were considered as a measurement of one’s success. A scale where if you were on the top, you were guaranteed to succeed in life and live well. Generation after generation of parents expecting their kids to “excel” on the superficial yardstick that defines the datum for success.

I thought all this would be over once I went to the United States to pursue a Master’s degree (Don’t worry, I did secure a job in a reputed firm and acceptance from a decent MBA school so that my important “neighbors” don’t assume I was not able to secure a job after college). But I was wrong. The land of opportunities also brought with it a completely different set of “expectations of success”.

The playing field was different, the objectives were different, but the same feeling of never having enough, never earning enough and overall never being good enough continued. I had completed my Masters as quickly as I could and had secured a job immediately in a Fortune 150 company. But the feeling of inadequacy did not go away.

And this does not stop after securing a job. The cycle of expectations continued, the biggest house, the best cars, the club memberships i.e. the grandest life in comparison to the neighbors who were generally known as the “Joneses”.

The circle of life started to look more and more like the exercise wheel of a rat or the death spiral to oblivion.

How did things get this off track?

It almost felt like the systems we created to achieve material success and freedom and a better lifestyle are the very reason why we were living such unfulfilled lives. Hundreds of years of human progress has not really taught us a simple and easy way to find fulfillment and success in life. There had to be a better way/approach and methodology to cracking this code. How did the wheels go off the rails?!

Which is why, from the day I started feeling that emptiness in my chest after making significant progress in my  professional career (thinking I am finally done with the circle of expectations!), I have been observing different people I interact with to understand what systems they have created for themselves to progress in the direction they want to take their lives in. These people include everyone from the people who serve me at the cafeteria, to the outsourced workers who clean out trash when the shift ends.  Everyone defines success in their own terms and invariably we build systems that direct us towards that goal in one form or another.

Birth of Success Sadhaka

I was confident that there must be  a certain common thread, a locus point everyone is trying to get to. The quest for these answers led me to start this blog. A way to share everything I learn and encounter as I seek to unravel and break this cycle of expectations the world has of us or we have of ourselves.

Why Success Sadhaka? And not “The Secret to Success!” or the “Life’s formula to Happiness”? Well, if one word could define fulfillment, material satisfaction, economic stability, financial independence. a happy and nourishing social life, supportive family framework, good health and spiritual well being, for me that would be Success.

When all those areas of my physical, mental, social, economical and spiritual life are in harmony, balance and progressing towards improvement, I would call my life a Success.

And Sadhaka? Sadhaka means a seeker, but not just one who sits and wishes. One who seeks and performs acts to progress towards that which he/she is seeking. I know deep down inside, we are all seekers. Whether we acknowledge it or not. We are seeking something or the other in life. Validation, peace, recognition, isolation, money, fame, rest, pleasure…the list is endless. So this blog is part of my quest as a Sadhaka.

Hoping that you can gain some insight as you read, utilize and adopt the various articles, stories and tools that you will find on this blog.